Category Archives: Social Media

When a VA Needs a VA

So, here’s a conundrum: when should you hire someone to do your job? At first glance, that may seem ridiculous, right? Why would you hire someone when you can do it?

But, in some cases, that’s exactly what you should do! Hiring yourself a virtual assistant can actually be the best business move.

You can probably rattle off several benefits to using a virtual assistant. You know, the list you use when you’re trying to land a client. But have you ever stopped to realize those benefits of using a virtual assistant apply to you too?

There are two great situations when a virtual assistant should hire a virtual assistant.

Situation One: When you want to keep a client, but can’t meet all their needs

So, you just found a great client. Congrats! But, something about the gig is beyond your ability. You don’t have to sigh sadly and say goodbye. You can use a virtual assistant to fill in the gaps.

Maybe you lack the right equipment for a project. A small portion of the work involves using Quickbooks. The occasional editing project requires Photoshop. It won’t be enough hours for you to justify buying whatever software, but it still needs to be done. Hire a virtual assistant with the right equipment to handle those tasks for you. It’s a win-win. The client gets every need taken care of. You don’t have to dump money on something you’ll hardly use. You pay it forward supporting your fellow virtual assistant in giving them a small gig (hello karma!).

Maybe you lack the expertise for a task. The client needs you to write blogs (your forte!) but also needs help coding a site (your worst nightmare!). Part of the gig requires creating social media posts, which you know nothing about. The client wants you to occasionally call their customers, and speaking on the phone terrifies you. Pass off the task to a better suited virtual assistant. Again, it’s a win-win! The task gets handled by someone more qualified, making the client happy. You can avoid tasks you’re uncomfortable with. And you support your fellow virtual assistant (more karma!)

Maybe you just lack the time. It’s a busy season right now, and you can’t keep up. You don’t have to drop a client, and you certainly don’t have to run yourself ragged or drown trying to keep up. You can hire a virtual assistant to take on some of the load. A virtual assistant can be hired for a short-term project or two, or become a permanent member of your team. Whatever better fits your need, you’ll benefit from the helping hand.

Situation Two: When you want help managing or growing your business

Maybe your need is internal. You need help maintaining the status quo, or you’re ready to take things to the next level. A virtual assistant can be a great help with business building tasks.

You can pass off little tasks that need to be done, but don’t need to be done by you. Things like data entry, scheduling, or addressing envelopes are great tasks to delegate. Do a time audit for a week to see the biggest time sucks. You may be surprised at how much time you spend with these little tasks that can be handled by someone else. Pass off anything that someone else can do 80% as well or better. For help finding specific tasks to delegate, use our delegator worksheet.

You can also pass off tasks that need to be done, but shouldn’t be done by you. Tasks that you lack the knowledge or experience for, like social media or SEO marketing, are well-suited for a specialized virtual assistant. Hiring a team member can help make sure these important business building tasks get done, and get done well.

You can also bring in a virtual assistant just for a fresh perspective. Maybe you’re working on an idea project and you need brainstorming help. Maybe you’re stuck and need an outside view. Maybe you’re hoping to change your approach, and could use fresh eyes to shake things up. Whatever the reason, a virtual assistant can offer a new perspective.

Before You Outsource to a Virtual Assistant

If you’re ready to hire a virtual assistant, make sure to do these three things first. It’ll make the hiring process a better experience for you both (why couldn’t everyone be a dream client like you?)

  1. Be ruthless about a task’s necessity. Stop and really evaluate whether the task even needs to be done. You’d be surprised how many things we do on autopilot, things that we should eliminate. As Timothy Ferris, author of The 4 Hour Workweek says, “never automate something that can be eliminated, and never delegate something that can be automated or streamlined.” You shouldn’t waste time outsourcing tasks that aren’t imperative. Make sure it’s necessary and cannot be automated before you delegate it.
  2. Make the process efficient. Look at the steps used for the task. Can you remove any unnecessary steps? Can you make any steps more efficient? Can you batch tasks for better productivity? When you make the process more efficient, it takes less time and costs you less money.
  3. Put all the needed information in one place. Give your virtual assistant a guidebook with everything they’ll need. Include passwords, step-by-step instructions, and an example if possible. Cut down on the amount of time you’ll need to explain the project. Make things as clear as possible for the virtual assistant to reduce the time spent asking questions. Plus, if the project is ever repeated, you’ll have a guide ready to go.

If you’re ready to hire a virtual assistant, consider Alpine Small Business Solutions! Our expert staff can help you with any project, so give us a call or shoot us an email today.

How to Delete Facebook Apps

Today’s tutorial request comes in from Daniel.  Daniel was curious how to remove apps from his Facebook settings. He was worried that they were obtaining too much personal information.

 

5 Reasons Why You Should be on the Google+ Social media Platform to Grow Your Online Business

Yes, I know…it is the next big thing…AGAIN! We have heard it several times that Google+ is going to be huge, yet you don’t use it or really even know what it is. So why do you want to be on it now?

Usually, you want to use social media outlets your target audience is active on. Not always. Insert Google+, the failed social media platform created by Google to compete with Facebook and Twitter. It comes and it goes without you ever really noticing. So why would I push you to be active on a failed platform? Sure, Google+ lacks the prevalence into popular culture that Facebook and Twitter can rightly brag about. But it offers unique benefits to marketers for growing your business, enough to justify the minimal time it takes to grow a thriving Google+ presence.

But first, what really is Google+?

g-1460601__180While Google+ is a unique social media platform, it can be helpful to think of it in terms of other more familiar platforms. It offers an easy way to curate and organization information (like Pinterest), the option to follow anyone without needing them to follow you back (like Twitter), and the ability to create a personal profile and a business page (like Facebook). Unlike other social media platforms that are relationship driven (connect with people you know), Google+ is more interest driven (connect with people who share similar ideas/interests). What really sets Google+ apart, though, is that it’s created by Google. And Google rewards users who consume their social media platform, resulting in the biggest benefit of Google+ being its SEO benefits.

Google+ SEO benefits

Google+ improves your SEO through a few ways. First, posts that are high in shares and +1 (the Google+ version of “likes” and “favorites”) rank higher in search results. So when you publish content high in shares and +1, that content is seen more by individuals and increases the chances they check out your website, become a customer, etc.

google-plus-1007069__180Second, through the use of Google+ Circles (similar to friending someone or liking a page on Facebook). If an individual is logged into Google and they added you to their Google+ Circle, your content is more likely to show up in their search results.

Third, your Google+ posts are immediately indexed into search results, translating into SEO benefits quicker than if you were to post the same content on another platform.

When your content shows up higher in search results, more people can discover your content. More eyes on your content means more visits to your website, more conversions into customers, etc. SEO is a crucial aspect of business building, and Google+ is a great way to strengthen your SEO.

While SEO is the biggest benefit to Google+, it is definitely not the only benefit.

Audience Segmentation

Google+ offers a feature called “Google+ Circles” which allows you to organize contacts into specialized groups. Each time you publish content, you get the option to only share with relevant group(s). This allows you to provide solid content specialized for individual users, providing them high benefit without oversaturating their feeds.

Target Audience Finding

google-plus-1183714__180Another great Google+ feature is “communities.” These are similar to Facebook groups. They are created by individuals and members within communities share and engage with content. Communities are categorized into different topics, such as football or photography. Posts are organized into sub-topics (for example, in a freelance writers’ group there are topics of marketing, writing tips, and writing tools) to help users sort through the high quantity of information.

Say you are a healthy food blogger. You can join communities such as healthy recipes or vegetarian eating. Individuals in these groups are targeted audiences who may want to consume your content and use your services. You can post regularly quality content (such as recipes) in hopes of directing members of the community to your blog. It’s applying the content marketing strategy (provide quality free content to be seen as an expert in your industry and increase the likelihood consumers will use your business when they need to buy a product/service) to a highly targeted audience. As a result, your content marketing efforts are more efficient.

Improving Your Knowledge

Communities aren’t just for you to share information-you can use them to gain knowledge too! First, you can improve the relevance and quality your content. See what types of content other similar businesses post to gain new ideas for blog posts. Find out what topics individuals respond to, and tailor your content to fit that. Second, you can join communities related to content marketing, social media, and the like to stay up-to-date with the latest marketing trends and tools.

Using Google+

Google+ offers many rich benefits to marketers who take advantage of it. If you’re really strapped for time, you can connect your Google+ account to Hootsuite and share every Facebook post to Google+ as well. If you’ve got more time, however, the recommended strategy is to treat Google+ as its own social media platform. The style of posts that resonate most with your audience on Google+ will be different than the posts that resonate with your audience on Facebook, Twitter, etc. You can take content you’ve already made (such as blog posts or newsletter copy) and share on Google+.

Ready to take advantage of Google+ but aren’t sure where to start? Alpine Small Business Solutions is here for you! We’d love to help you with Google+, or any aspect of small business building. Simply give us a call or shoot us an email today!

Warning: Facebook will be Deleting Photos from Your Facebook Account and you may not even know it!

As of July 7th, 2016, Facebook will be deleting many of the photos you took using a smartphone unless you swap to its new Moments picture sharing service and anyone who used Facebook’s ‘syncing’ feature is at risk.


woman-638384__180The function stored all the pictures taken on a smartphone in a special private folder, so users could decide whether to share them publicly at a later date or just store them for their own personal keeping.

The only way to keep them is to download the new Moments app, which collects pictures based on when they were taken and who is in them. The social network began notifying users that it would soon delete all their synced photos if they did not install the app, which was released in June 2015.

The process actually started in January when Facebook discontinued support for automatic syncing of photos from the main Facebook app, forcing users to install the Moments app should they wish to continue automatically uploading their photos.

hands-1167617__180Rest assured though, the removal of the synced photos won’t affect any photos or videos shared on Facebook separately from the synced album, while users are being given the chance to download the photos before they are deleted to those that are synced. Actually, Facebook recently did a very similar thing with its Messenger app by removing chat from the main Facebook app and forcing users to install the Messenger app to keep sending Facebook instant messages.

These changes help Facebook by giving them other platforms to endorse and promote which in turn builds their name along with new apps that are now showing a rise in users such as the Messenger app and soon the new Moments app. Nonetheless, if you love your selfies, you should probably make sure they are saved permanently on your computer especially if you don’t fancy using Moment.

Anyone who’s used Facebook’s auto sync feature in the past has until July 7th to download Moments or a zip file of their synced photos. Otherwise, they’re going to disappear.

Not sure if you have any synced photos to be worried about, Facebook actually sent out an email to all its’ users telling them they are getting ready to retire the “synced photos” feature and in order to save them you must download and use the new Moments app.

fb sync 1

“Synced photos” is a feature that you had to take the time to turn on and it would sync the photos on your phone with Facebook in a private album. If you never turned it on, you have nothing to worry about. Facebook will not be deleting any photos you’ve shared with friends in albums or uploaded to your timeline. If you deleted the message from Facebook or never remember getting one it can be tough to know just how many photos will be deleted. However, there is a pretty easy way to see how many of your “synced” photos are at risk of being deleted.

First, make sure you’re logged into your Facebook account, then go to: https://www.facebook.com/photos. Now, look above your photos for a link that says “Synced from Phone” and click that. If you don’t see a link for “Synced from Phone” then you never used the feature and you don’t have to worry about this.

fb sync 2

Look for the link that says “delete them permanently” and click that. (Don’t worry, it won’t delete them instantly)

fb sync 3

Then you should see a popup window with a count of the photos that have been “synced” to your account.

fb sync 5

Facebook should then show you the actual photos you have synced so you can make an informed decision as to whether you need to download Moments to save them but they don’t.

Therefore, from here you have two decisions to make – you can follow the other link to “download your synced photos” and toss them into your other backup service like Google Photos/iCloud or you can download the Moments app to actually see the pictures in question.

fb sync 6

If it’s a low number I suggest just using the download link but if it’s a larger amount of pictures and you want to see which ones are at risk of deletion you probably want to download the Moments app.

While users will be able to save their photos if they wish, the forceful methods used by the social media network has drawn criticism from users, with claims that Facebook is using its enormous leverage to force users to install its apps.

10 Hidden Gems in Facebook Personal Pages

Facebook is a fantastic invention-you already love it, but there’s a lot hidden beneath the surface. We’ve dug deep into Facebook to find the top 10 hidden secrets.

  1. Message Requests

Not every message that’s sent to you on Facebook shows up in your inbox. Messages sent by someone you are not friends with on Facebook go into a “message request” section.

To access these, click the chatat the top right of your screen. Then click “message requests” (to the right of “recent”).

  1. Save Button for Posts

Sometimes we find great content on Facebook . . . right when we have the least amount of time to actually read it. Never fear-the save button is here! The save button allows you to privately save links to read later.

If the post you want to save popped up on your news feed, simply click the to the right of the post and click “save”.

fb block

If you’re viewing the post from a page, click … and click “save.”

To view your saved posts, go to the left menu and click “saved” (or you can go to Facebook.com/saved).

fb block 2

When you want to delete a post, go to the “saved” posts section. Click “archive” at the top and click next to the post you want to remove, then click “delete.”

  1. Download Copy of FB Data

It’s no surprise that Facebook stores a lot of data on its consumers—A LOT. While you can’t stop Facebook from storing this data, you can access it (or at least some of it). Facebook allows users to download their information, which includes information you can see by using your account (such as posts you share and your activity log) and information you cannot see from your account (such as ads you’ve clicked on and IP addresses that are logged when you use Facebook).

Facebook provides a long list of what types of data is available in the downloaded information (which you can access here: https://www.facebook.com/help/405183566203254) but there are a few key subjects that may be of the most interest to people: searches you’ve made on Facebook, removed friends, pending friend requests, any friends apps or pages you’ve hidden from your news feed, list of people who follow you, and a list of topics that you may be targeted against based on your status likes interests and other timeline data.

To download the information, go into your settings section. Click “download a copy of your Facebook data” below your general account settings. Click “start my archive.” Depending on how long you have been on Facebook and how much you post, it may take a while, but they will email you when it is ready for you to view.

  1. Adding a Legacy Contact

While it’s uncomfortable to think about, it’s important to decide what you want to happen to your Facebook account when you pass away. Facebook provides two options: delete your account permanently or leave up the account and allow loved ones to share memories on it. For the later, you’ll need to designate a legacy contact. They’ll be able to write a pinned post (which can be used to provide memorial service information or share a message on your behalf), accept new friend requests from loved ones, and update the profile picture and cover photo. They will not be able to remove any friends, read your messages, change or remove past posts, or actually log into your account.

To add a legacy contact, log into your settings and click “security” and then “legacy contact.” Type in your designated contact’s name and click “add.” If you later decide you want to change the contact, you’ll be able to click on the contact and click “remove.” Then you can add your new legacy contact.

It’s difficult, but important, to think about what will happen when you pass on. If you run a business, be sure to check out our post on how to prepare your business for an unexpected life crisis: link to post here.

  1. Edit Ad Preferences

Ads can be annoying. Ads that relate absolutely nothing to your life or preferences are even more annoying. Fortunately, Facebook allows you to edit your ad preferences. Simply click (www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/edit/). The link will bring you to a page listing topics and sub-topics that Facebook picked based on your activities on and off Facebook. You’ll be able to delete irrelevant preferences, as well as add preferences from a set list of topics.

  1. Send and Receive Money Through Facebook

Yes, you read that right. You can now send money to people through Facebook Messenger without a charge! First, you need to add a debit card. Click “settings,” then click “payments,” then click “add new debit card.” Currently, the only way to pay through Messenger is debit. You can also add a PIN if you wish for an extra security measure (click “settings” then click “payments” then click “PIN”).

Once your debit account is activated in Messenger, you’re ready to send money. Create a message and click the $ icon and enter the payment amount. Click “pay” in the top right to send it.

fb block 3

To receive money for the first time, open the conversation and click “add card” in the message to add your debit card.

Just like with other transfers, it may take up to three business days for the banks to make the funds available.

  1. Embedding Posts

Did you know you can embed public Facebook posts onto your website? It’s simple and a great way to add visual content to your site. First, navigate to the post and click “embed post” from the drop down menu.

fb block 4

A box will pop up with a code, which you will need to copy and paste into your website.

fb block 5

Embedded posts are a great way to post testimonials, include examples, quote sources, show off your best content, and more!

  1. Friendship Pages

This feature was developed during a Facebook Hackathon. It is basically a timeline, but for a relationship instead of one person. It gathers all the communication (posts, replies, tagged photos, etc.) that involve you and a friend you choose, and places it all in the Friendship Page. You can view these posts, and even personalize the cover photo and profile picture.

To access the page, go to your friend’s profile and click and select “see friendship” from the dropdown.

  1. Play Chess With a Friend Through Messenger

Who doesn’t love a competition of intelligence and strategy between friends? Simply type “@fbchess play” into a conversation with a friend and Messenger will bring up a game of chess. To move type in the phrase “@fbchess” followed by the letter of the piece (K for king, Q for queen, B for bishop, N for knight, R for rook, and P for Pawn) and the letter and number of the location‑For example, “@fbchessPe4” would move a pawn to square E4. If you get confused, type in “@fbchess help.” If you wish to end a match, type in “@fbchess resign.” To pick which color to start with, type “@fbchess play white” or “@fbchess play black” (white goes first).

  1. Play Basketball With a Friend Through Messenger

Maybe chess isn’t your thing. How about a friendly basketball competition? Simply send a friend a basketball emoji and then click on the sent image to begin the game. The scores will be logged in the message feed so you can brag (or listen to bragging) easily.

To play the game, flick up on your phone to launch the ball into the hoop and try to get as many in as possible.

Facebook for personal use offers hours of endless entertainment, from dominating at a basketball game to reminiscing over old memories when viewing the Friendship Page. Facebook is a great tool for businesses as well. If you’d like help utilizing the benefits of Facebook for your business, simply call us or email us today! We are here to help with any aspect of business building, including social media marketing through Facebook.

Facebook Removes the 20% Text Rule

To the joy of marketers everywhere, Facebook finally altered the 20% text rule! This recent change will provide more flexibility and freedom to marketers, while likely impacting the ad experience for Facebook users. Below we break down some common questions about this recent change.

What was the rule before the change?

20%Previously, Facebook rejected ad requests where more than 20% of the image contained text. This caused frustration among marketers whose ads were rejected for containing just barely too much text, and for brands whose logo was text. Some arguably creative and effective ads were also rejected due to containing too much text.

Why did this rule exist if it caused so much frustration?

Facebook, as it repeatedly claims, is all about the user experience. Part of the user experience is the appearance and feel of the timeline. The line of thinking from Facebook went something like this… if ads appeared on timelines containing massive amounts of text, the timelines would appear cluttered and users would be less satisfied with the look of their timelines. Preventing advertisers from using too much text also helped push advertisers to make more creative ads that focused on “showing” rather than “telling,” since you rely on words to “tell.”

So with this change, can I now use as much text as I want on ads?

 

carrots-673201__180Marketers are now given the option to use photos in their ads that contain more than 20% text. No longer will beautiful ads be rejected for containing just a little bit too much text-marketers rejoice! The new change means Facebook will not stop advertisers from using an image simply because of an abundance of text (other restrictions, such as inappropriate images, still apply). However, Facebook still is pursuing the user experience as the priority. While it removed the “stick” form of motivation (punishing users for ads with too much text by preventing those ads from being published), it simultaneously implemented a “carrot” approach of motivation (providing an incentive to still use ads with minimal text). So even though it may not be a requirement, they still are going to make sure marketers keep limiting text at the top of their minds.

So, why would I still want to use ads with minimal text?

First, ads with too much text are not visually appealing. They make the photo appear cluttered and busy, two things you want to avoid because viewers will likely skip over it. Of course, there are exceptions where the cluttered and busy look is used to make a creative point, but generally speaking it’s a good idea to limit text from a graphic design standpoint.

thumbs upSecond, using too much text will negatively affect the amount of people who see your ad. Facebook has said that, given the same budget, ads with more text will reach a lower number of individuals than ads with less text. Hence the carrot again. They will motivate you to do what they like by giving you more views. Facebook won’t stop you from using too much text, but it makes it clear it is in the best interest of the marketer to continue using minimal text.

How will I know if my ad still uses too much text?

Images uploaded for ads will be placed into one of four categories. The one marketers should aim for is “image text: OK” because it will see no negative impact on reach. These photos contain no or minimal text. The next category “image text: low” sees a slightly limited ad reach. The third category “image text: medium” may see limited ad reach. The fourth category “image text: high” may not even reach the intended audience at all. When advertisers upload a photo in the grid tool, Facebook will let the user know which category the photo falls into.

 

Pros and Cons of the Facebook’s Redesigned Like Button

You’ve probably noticed by now the new lovable little emojis popping up on your Facebook feed similar to the “like” button. It’s part of a significant redesign of Facebook’s iconic “like” button to provide users with a variety of quick empathetic responses.

Users can still use the traditional “like” button if they wish, but can also choose “love,” “haha,” “wow,” “sad,” and “angry” buttons. Simply hover the cursor over the “like” button and these options will pop-up.

If you are working on a mobile device, you have to just hold the “like” button and the options pop up.Like thumbs up

While this offers more options for consumers and casual Facebook users, what do these mean for a business’ social media? Will these provide any benefit for the businesses, or will it actually hurt a business trying to see more engagement or comments? It’s too early to tell whether this will be overall beneficial for businesses, but below are some pros and cons of this Facebook change:

PROS

  1. The emojis provide an easy way for audiences to engage with organizations, and it provides
    a bit more emotion. As usage rates of social media on mobile devices increase, ease of use is becoming increasingly important for online consumers. Individuals may not go through the hassle of typing out a comment on a phone, but may take a few seconds to respond with an emoji that offers them a variety of ways to express themselves.
  2. The emojis provide more ways for audiences to engage with organizations in a customizable way. Granted, the “like” button is an effective tool to express a positive reaction toward a post or show support for the idea within the post. However, there’s a lot it cannot do. The introduction of more responses allows audiences a variety of empathetic responses, which in turn can provide organizations more insight into the minds of their audiences.
  3. The number of emojis is small enough to empower engagement while avoiding overwhelming audiences. The paradox of choice, backed by research by psychologist Barry Schwartz, argues more options can overload people and result in their choosing to not make a choice or regret the choice they did make. Other social media platforms offer so many emoji options that many people end up not choosing any of them. Having six options is enough to provide the benefits of freedom of speech and autonomy that audiences love without the drawback of reducing audiences’ decision making ability.

CONS

  1. The emojis increase the difficulty of an already difficult aspect of social media marketing: measurement. It’s hard for marketers to know what, and how, to measure social media efforts and ROI. Introducing more variables to measure makes those decisions of how to approach analytics more challenging, and raises new questions to answer—for example, should a “love” count the same as a “like”? And is angry a good thing? Is someone showing the emotion of anger against your post, or supporting the post if it is a negative tone-as in it also makes them angry?
  2. The emojis may actually reduce engagement. It’s great that people may use the “like” button given the added options, but at the same time people may choose to use emojis over commenting. By providing audiences the opportunity to say more with less words, audiences may in turn end up simply using less words in general and decrease the amount they provide valuable audience insight through commenting.
  3. More options for engagement mean more data the Facebook algorithm can collect. This isn’t necessarily inherently a bad thing, but it could be a drawback if the data is used to determine how many people see your business post. While it’s not certain yet how Facebook will use that new data, it’s possible businesses whose audiences don’t utilize the emojis could see a drop in reach and engagement.

People have asked Facebook for a “dislike” button for years, and this is their response. Right now, it is new and exciting, but time will be the judge on how well this new engagement works, and more importantly, how it impacts the business side of Facebook. We do know that this will impact the field of social media marketing and the numerous organizations relying on social media for advertising, whether it will be a positive impact is left to be determined.

If the thought of trying to understand and master yet another drastic change to social media makes your head spin, don’t fret! Alpine Small Business Solutions is here for you. We can handle your social media marketing, or any other aspect of business building you would like assistance with. Just shoot us an email or call us up.

Business to Business Facebook Likes Don’t Count

NO! Say it isn’t true!!!Social Media

Yes, it is sad but true. B2B Facebook likes are not added to your business page’s like count. Facebook is set up with a complex algorithm that isn’t very business friendly. This algorithm determines many aspects of how Facebook works and what is seen by your followers.

If not getting all the likes you could isn’t depressing enough, actually only a fraction of your followers can see your status updates at any given time because of how Facebook’s algorithm works. This leaves small business owners in the hard spot of having to work hard to get every like they can and pushing consistent, quality content to get people to like and engage on their page. The more engagement you can get the more Facebook allows your content to be seen.

So should I still like their pages?

YES! Still like business pages with your business account, but also do it with your personal account. Engage with content that is relevant to you with your business account—like, share, and comment all you want, the page owner will greatly appreciate it. Just make sure you also like the page with your personal account so the business is getting credit for your like. As important as likes are in the Facebook world, engagement will take you page to a whole new level, so make sure you are posting quality content and talking with others in your field.

Is there anything I can do?

Yes! But you are going to have to pay for it or work for it. Facebook has ads and ways to promote you page to get a larger audience. There are also many organic tactics that a virtual assistant can help you set up to try to grow your page, but it is always an ongoing process. You have to work for those likes and engagement through persistence and content.

It is so unfair!

Yes, it does seem a little unfair to businesses out there trying to grow their page, but the truth is that is exactly what Facebook is trying to do as well. Facebook is like any other business, and they are trying to make money by having businesses promote their page to get followers and have their information be seen.

Small Business work togetherFrom small business owner to small business owner, help one another out. We all are trying to grow and get our word out there. Engage, comment, like, and share as much as you can, not only will it help the other business but it will be helping yours grow as well. Go team!

 

 

The Ins and Outs of the New Gmail

As usual there are always changes coming along to snarl up our comfort zone of knowing our way around a certain product or service. Well, our comfort zone has been compromised. Google is the next in line of the changes and at first it looks super great for email organization but with further inspection, the new tabbed interface is super confusing.

Google describes the new tabs as a way to “put you back in control so that you can see what’s new at a glance and decide which emails you want to read and when.”You get five optional tabs, described by Google below. Google automatically sorts your inbox into these tabs using its special algorithms (essentially matching many of Gmail’s existing Smart Labels, which automatically filter incoming messages):

Primary: person-to-person conversations and messages that don’t appear in other tabs
Social: messages from social networks, media-sharing sites, online dating services, and other social websites
Promotions: deals, offers, and other marketing emails
Updates: personal, auto-generated updates including confirmations, bills, receipts, bills, and statements
Forums: messages from online groups, discussion boards, and mailing lists

You can also choose to force starred emails from all tabs to display in the Primary tab (in addition to the other tab).

The tabs do give you a convenient way to automatically sort your inbox according to Gmail’s preset categories and get notifications at a glance for when new emails come in. However, the tabbed view introduces a new, not-so-clear element in Gmail called “categories.”

When you create a filter, in addition to being able to label a message, you can now categorize it as: Personal, Social, Updates, Promotions, or Forums from a dropdown box. These, as you see, match the tabs.

The problem is, you already have labels that also match these categories. Gmail, for example, adds Social Updates, Promotions, and Forums as SmartLabels in the left menu. The “Notifications” SmartLabel corresponds to the Updates tab but SmartLabels are not the same as Categories. Gmail’s pre-designed SmartLabel filter makes it seem like that, but they’re really two different things.

How to Customize the Tabs with Your Own Filters As mentioned earlier, you can now create your own filters to categorize messages, thus putting them in one of these tabs. So if you have no use for the “Forums” tab, you can instead use it to collect messages from specific senders or keywords.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to change the tab name… at least yet. The key is to make sure the filter doesn’t overlap an existing filter that might counteract what you’re trying to do. For example, you can’t have “Skip the inbox” on a matching filter, otherwise it won’t appear in the tabs at all (since the tabs are organization for the inbox).

To customize the tabs:
1. Create a new filter for the messages you want moved to one of the tabs.
2. In the filter options in the next screen, choose the category that matches the tab for the “Categorize as” option.
3. You’ll also have to check “Exclude from SmartLabels” just in case Gmail tries to categorize your email differently. Then hit “Create filter.”
4. If you also want to prevent Gmail auto-categorizing other messages in that tab, you could also go into your Settings > Filters and scroll to the bottom for the SmartLabel Filters and disable or edit the corresponding filter. However, do this with caution, as it seems there’s no easy way to restore the built-in filter. It might be better to configure Gmail’s SmartLabels so they skip the inbox and thus skip your tabs. About.com’s Email site has the list of each SmartLabel (e.g., “label:^smartlabel_promo” for Promotions). When creating your filter, search for that “label:^” term to filter it out as you’d like.

How to Disable the Tabbed Inbox If You Don’t Like It

If you don’t like the new feature, it’s pretty easy to get a more traditional inbox back. Just click on the settings cog in the upper right-hand corner, go to “Configure Inbox,” and uncheck everything except “Primary.” This will remove the tabs and bring you back to the old, familiar, one-inboxed interface.

Thinking about Gmail’s new tabs, SmartLabels, regular labels, and filters can feel like you’re trying to solve an annoying circular reference error in Excel (this happened to me today). However, the new tabbed view might come in handy if you know how to harness it.

And as always, if this stuff makes you dizzy and you just don’t want to take the time to learn all the ins and out of the new Gmail, remember that Alpine Small Business Solutions, is your one stop shop for all your social media, Virtual Assistant, Online Business Manager and business building needs. We got your back, so give us a jingle or shoot over an email anytime we’re here to help.

Thank you for visiting our blog. We hope you enjoyed it. As a friendly reminder don’t forget to share this blog on your social networks and please comment, we love hearing from you!

This blog is brought to you by Alpine Small Business Solutions, Your Virtual Assistant and Online Business Manager Solution. Delegate. Grow. Prosper.